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Krutsch Robert Cristian
I have already seen some increase in pricing. My old hdd failed me a couple of ...
Thai floods to speed up transition to SSDs
Sylvie Barak
11/10/2011 6:58 PM EST
SAN FRANCISCO--The Taiwanese hardware and component channel could be badly hit as a result of the crippling floods in Thailand which have resulted in hard disc drive (HDD) shortages globally, though the move could speed up the transition to solid state drives (SSDs), according to sources.
A marketing manager at motherboard manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co. told EE Times that while it was an exaggeration to say shipments might drop 25 percent in the fourth quarter as a result of the knock on effect from the flooding, a 10 to 15 percent decrease was likely.
“We haven't been affected yet, but the market is in panic mode because computer makers don't know when they will be able to order HDDs from Western Digital Corp. (WD) and Seagate Technology again,” the Gigabyte spokesman said.
WD’s Thailand factory is said to be flooded with up to two meters of water. Seagate’s facility remains above water but is running perilously low on components like motors and heads.
In the Taiwanese channel, distributors have begun to hoard the drives, he said, hiking prices by as much as 200 or 300 percent, even though the HDD manufacturers themselves had only hiked their prices up by around 50 percent.
“They don't know how many they will be able to buy and when they will be able to order again,” he said, noting that buyers for the big multinationals like Dell Inc., Hewlett Packard Co. and Acer Inc. were scouring the Chinese market and buying up as many HDDs as possible to stock up in case of acute shortages.
“In some places they are starting to run out already,” he said. “So this will affect everyone.”
It has been reported in the Taiwanese press that even local giants like Asustek Computer expect to see shipments decrease from 6.3 million in the third quarter to six million in the fourth, though analysts believe that could be an underestimation and the figure could be closer to 5.4-5.7 million. Both Micro-Star International (MSI) and ASRock Inc. also expect to see their shipments down by 10 percent as a result of the shortages.
The major hit has been to 2.5-inch drives, rather than the larger 3.5-inch drives more commonly produced in Malaysia or mainland China facilities. The smaller drives are typically targeted at the notebook market, a market which already has incredibly tight margins in order to keep prices affordable for consumers.
“If notebooks become significantly more expensive, people might even start considering the desktop as a cheaper alternative again,” said the Gigabyte spokesman.
“We'll know in four to six weeks what the supply will look like in Q1, 2012, and then things should ease up and prices will normalize,” he said, adding that the flooding could end up having a positive effect on the solid state drive (SSD) market.
“Most people have predicted that SSDs will only become a standard option in about two years’ time,” the Gigabyte spokesman said.
SSDs are still expensive, with half a terabyte costing around $1,000. For every 64GB SSD, one could currently buy a three terabyte HDD, but that’s without factoring in the potential effects of the supply shortages.
“These floods and the combination of other factors will speed up the transition, especially for the notebook makers” Gigabyte’s spokesman posited.
A marketing manager at motherboard manufacturer Gigabyte Technology Co. told EE Times that while it was an exaggeration to say shipments might drop 25 percent in the fourth quarter as a result of the knock on effect from the flooding, a 10 to 15 percent decrease was likely.
“We haven't been affected yet, but the market is in panic mode because computer makers don't know when they will be able to order HDDs from Western Digital Corp. (WD) and Seagate Technology again,” the Gigabyte spokesman said.
WD’s Thailand factory is said to be flooded with up to two meters of water. Seagate’s facility remains above water but is running perilously low on components like motors and heads.
In the Taiwanese channel, distributors have begun to hoard the drives, he said, hiking prices by as much as 200 or 300 percent, even though the HDD manufacturers themselves had only hiked their prices up by around 50 percent.
“They don't know how many they will be able to buy and when they will be able to order again,” he said, noting that buyers for the big multinationals like Dell Inc., Hewlett Packard Co. and Acer Inc. were scouring the Chinese market and buying up as many HDDs as possible to stock up in case of acute shortages.
“In some places they are starting to run out already,” he said. “So this will affect everyone.”
It has been reported in the Taiwanese press that even local giants like Asustek Computer expect to see shipments decrease from 6.3 million in the third quarter to six million in the fourth, though analysts believe that could be an underestimation and the figure could be closer to 5.4-5.7 million. Both Micro-Star International (MSI) and ASRock Inc. also expect to see their shipments down by 10 percent as a result of the shortages.
The major hit has been to 2.5-inch drives, rather than the larger 3.5-inch drives more commonly produced in Malaysia or mainland China facilities. The smaller drives are typically targeted at the notebook market, a market which already has incredibly tight margins in order to keep prices affordable for consumers.
“If notebooks become significantly more expensive, people might even start considering the desktop as a cheaper alternative again,” said the Gigabyte spokesman.
“We'll know in four to six weeks what the supply will look like in Q1, 2012, and then things should ease up and prices will normalize,” he said, adding that the flooding could end up having a positive effect on the solid state drive (SSD) market.
“Most people have predicted that SSDs will only become a standard option in about two years’ time,” the Gigabyte spokesman said.
SSDs are still expensive, with half a terabyte costing around $1,000. For every 64GB SSD, one could currently buy a three terabyte HDD, but that’s without factoring in the potential effects of the supply shortages.
“These floods and the combination of other factors will speed up the transition, especially for the notebook makers” Gigabyte’s spokesman posited.
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justathought
11/10/2011 3:04 PM EST
ssds have nothing to do with dram really...
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Robotics Developer
11/10/2011 3:23 PM EST
I look forward to the day when the SSDs are competitive! The speed of the SSD based system is very pleasant but not the cost.. I wonder if at some point (for laptops) there will be a hybrid drive: combo HDD and SSD in a single 2.5" form factor. That would yield some speed with larger storage capacity at a reasonable price.
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b_c
11/10/2011 5:46 PM EST
They do exist and they're on the market right now.
Examples include Seagate's Momentus XT series and Samsung's FlashOn series.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/laptops/laptop-hdd/
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/hdd/products/Product_HybridHDDFlashOn.html
They apply some algorithm that learns what is most accessed, and moves it to the flash. After about 3 or 4 reboots, they start to noticeably speed up boot times as the OS is made available from the flash.
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subman
11/10/2011 6:37 PM EST
What garbage.
Does the author of this article have any clue about SSD's and SSD markets? DRAM? Huh? NAND prices have been very strong lately, and that is the relevant comparison. On a higher level, the price of an SSD so massively dwarfs the prices of an HDD that an HDD supply hickup means pretty much nothing. This is like saying million dollar mansions are going to see a boom in sales because of a supply hickup in $100-200k houses.
The title on this article is incredibly misleading...what a horrible piece of journalism. EE Times, please find some writers conversant in technology and technology markets.
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SylvieBarak
11/11/2011 12:35 PM EST
You're right Subman, and I'm sorry for the rookie error. Good thing I have a reader community to correct me when I'm wrong and push me to do better. I appreciate you keeping me on my toes. Sorry again.
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resistion
11/11/2011 3:40 AM EST
Without HDDs notebooks (which could have saved DRAM from further depreciation) will suffer significant loss of sales. SSDs would be a nice saviour of the situation, but hard to pull off within a year (which is needed).
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t.alex
11/11/2011 10:47 PM EST
All the harddisks are manufactured in Thailand?
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SylvieBarak
11/12/2011 2:25 PM EST
not all of them T.alex, Western Digital manufactures around half in Thailand and half in Malaysia. Seagate has some factories in China too. But a significant number are made there
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t.alex
11/13/2011 12:37 AM EST
I see. I believe this flooding does affect many other major supply chains as well. This gonna leave bad reputation of the country.
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Krutsch Robert Cristian
11/17/2011 7:40 AM EST
I have already seen some increase in pricing. My old hdd failed me a couple of days ago and when I wanted to buy a new one I’ve seen a 30-40 euro increase in pricing compared to 4-5 months ago. I wondered why... this might be one of the motives.
I’ve lucked up 3-4 online stores from where I buy staff usually; this might not be general but now I start to question it…
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Ω
12/12/2011 6:47 PM EST
MORAL LESSON:
Thou shall not concentrate mass volume production ONLY in the best strategical location. Manufacturing Business should be able to realise that, there should always be a PLAN B... In this case, a clone manufacturing plant near the best strategical location.
Top Management should start playing stategy games such as Starcraft and Command & Conquer-Generals instead of Golf...
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